


Scattered Wrecks of It Enough Remain

by panicatthecisco



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Bisexual Alexander Hamilton, Gay John Laurens, Lams - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 11:11:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12725514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicatthecisco/pseuds/panicatthecisco
Summary: Alexander Hamilton always expected to see John Laurens again someday. He never expected it to happen over and over again.Or, the reincarnation au that I decided was a good idea to torture myself with while writing.





	Scattered Wrecks of It Enough Remain

Alexander Hamilton has always expected that the first face he'll see in the afterlife is that of John Laurens.

 

_Sometimes, I too dream that I have spent a life the sages way._

 

Instead, he finds himself on a great and cruel cosmic wheel, always destined to come back with shattered memories of a wide, bright smile, a freckled nose, and the warmest eyes one could ever imagine. For the first few lives, he dismisses these memories as something from his childhood. Everyone has that one thing that they can remember, but not quite. It's never a big deal. Some can remember glimpses of a grandparent, or the very first friend from when they were three years old. He never begins to imagine that these shards could be from a past life.

 

_And tread once more familiar paths._

 

 

The first time he comes back, politics in the United States are shifting. Jackson is in the Oval office. He lives his life as a lawyer. The eyes that he sees from time to time never appear.

 

Life after life goes this way. Sometimes he sees someone on the street who inspires a feeling of deja vu. He lives as a lawyer, an editor for a newspaper out west, once as a doctor. Always, the loneliness characterizes these lives.

 

It's not until 1944, in the middle of a war between two great nations that the memories come flooding back. The man beside him falls, and he's suddenly thrown back into a world of snow mixed with blood, the smell of gunpowder sharp and heavy in the freezing air, and those eyes he's seen life after life are beside him, worried but calm. 

 

The memory snaps away, and Alexander is suddenly ripped back into the present battle. He doesn't understand just what happened. It wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't a dream. It was real. That much he knows.

 

_Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance ages ago..._

 

Alexander walks away from that battle, and goes straight to his chaplain, who advises him to see the medic.

 

It happens again, and this time, Alexander doesn't walk away. But this time, all he sees are those eyes and freckles. He feels lighter somehow, like he's closer to accomplishing his goal.

 

_And in that act a prayer for one more chance went up so earnest,_

 

And so the cycle comes back. Each life brings more and more memories, until he's convinced of who he is. A history book in 1967 convinces him of this. His wife laughs it off. Always so imaginative, she says, and Alexander is suddenly overwhelmed by missing three sisters who died hundreds of years ago. 

 

_So instinct with better light let in by death,_

 

It's not until half a century later, when Alexander (he insists on being called by his full name) is grabbing his over stuffed bag from where it had been tossed onto the worn sofa in the tiny apartment he's just barely managing to keep while trying to balance a full school load and a job. He dashes out the door, almost trips over his own feet, and begins to sprint towards the bus stop. He makes it just in time, slides into a seat, muttering an apology to the elderly lady glaring at him.

 

_That life was blotted out- not so completely_

 

He rushes through all his classes at Columbia University as a political science major. He finally bursts out of his last class late that afternoon, deciding to spend a moment doing homework before he has to go to work. 

 

Even though he hates quiet and the usual lack of activity that comes with it, Alexander loves the library. To be surrounded by so many words is soothing. He settles himself at an empty table, and begins to spread his papers around.

 

_But scattered wrecks of it enough remain_

 

"Do you mind if I sit here?" a hushed voice asks, and Alexander looks up to see someone motioning at the far end of the table.

 

"Sure," he replies, "go ahead." He doesn't really look up from his scribbled notes.

 

"Thanks," the voice replies softly, and at that Alexander looks up, and everything clicks into place. 

 

Eyes the color of whiskey in the sun, freckles above a wide and welcoming smile, feelings he hadn't felt since ever- adoration and abject grief, fear and love.

 

"John," he says breathlessly, and the slightest shadow passes over that face before realization hits.

 

"Alexander," John Laurens says, and for the first time in centuries, Alexander Hamilton is at peace.

 

_Dim memories, as now, when once more seems the goal in sight again._

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from "Paracelsus" by Robert Browning, easily one of the most beautiful poems I have ever read.


End file.
